Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
